I have been using an LG WH16NS40 drive with LibreDrive firmware. It works pretty well. Certainly, I'm more than happy with it.
But, I found an ancient Samsung drive in the basement. It identifies as a "TSSTcorp: SH-S203N". The web suggests it was made around 2008. That sounds right.
Anyway, this thing absolutely devours disks. I've been converting some family DVDs from 20 years ago. No copy protection. Just convert to MKV. MakeMKV with this drive does them in about 12 minutes. The LG drives are closer to an hour and they were failing on the odd file. This old Samsung will read files the LG cannot.
I found an old DVD drive and it works unbelievably well
Re: I found an old DVD drive and it works unbelievably well
Fine for your needs. Most guys here want to rip BD or UHD movies. DVDs movies are much lower quality and therefore nearly everybody looks for a drive that can rip BDs and UHDs.
Re: I found an old DVD drive and it works unbelievably well
Others on this forum have mentioned that it seems like older DVD drives seem to do a better job with DVDs than newer combo drives, which occasionally stumble. I, like most, prefer the higher quality of blu-rays but there's lots of stuff that has only ever been released on DVD. That's cool that you've found a highly reliable DVD drive.